OT: Tennessee rejected by Charlie Strong, Big east passes sec as football conference

OT: Tennessee rejected by Charlie Strong, Big east passes sec as football conference

Tennessee just got turned down by charlie strong, does this mean the big east has surpassed the sec as a conference? From what the media has told me coaching moves can dictate who the best conferences are.

Thanks. I just went and glanced at one of the Tenn. blogs. It is getting entertaining. Brian could probably do one of his best TWIS stories he's ever done by looking at fans freaking out about their coach searches / coaches leaving.

Here's my favorite post from a Tenn fan so far. He's responding to someone saying Bobby Petrino's no worse than Bret Bielema because there are photos on the internet of Bielema shirtless and drunk:

If Tennessee ends up with Bobby Petrino, I'm going to laugh til the Cows come home. I don't own cows, so I'm also going to have to get cows and put them out to pasture. There are no pastures close to where I live. Basically, I am going to be laughing or a long time.

It reminds me of the Tiger Woods case... People just forgot about the incident once he started playing golf again. Petrino is potentially a home run hire proving that he can be very successful in the SEC. Tennessee really needs to consider him more.

...every time I hear the name Tiger Woods now, I can't help but laugh at the absurd image of him getting beaten with a golf club by his Swedish wife as he jumps into his luxury SUV and then promptly crashes into a telephone pole. I'm almost surprised the car didn't explode too in an over-the-top display of pyrotechnics like some kind of ridiculous Hollywood movie scene.

Tiger will forever be a joke to me.

Actually, yeah, come to think of it, the Petrino-crashing-a-motorbike-with-his-girlfriend-on-back is pretty similar. Petrino is a joke too.

Petrino is a damn good coach, who has had success in the SEC. The problem is all the baggage, and that's why he doesn't have a job already. Petrino, to me, would be a last resort to take this job because everyone has avoided hiring him. Petrino may have made sense to be the hire at any number of schools. Because of the baggage, he was a no go. Tennnessee (a school I don't exactly like) struggling to find pretty much anyone else and having to go with Petrino...that would be entertaining to say the least.

At Petrino's previous job at Arkansas, he didn't just cheat on his wife, get in motorcycle accident with his mistress (an Arkansas staffer), and then initally lie to the media (and I believe his AD) about the fact he was alone when he crashed.

More importantly, he recommended his mistress be hired for her Arkansas job (the Arkansas folks didn't know they had a relationship) giving her preferential treatment for a state job. That's a huge no-no.

In short, he's not just a scum bag in his private life (which you can argue, is his own private business between him, his wife, and his girlfriend), but in his public life & with his employers as well. If I was regent of the University of Tennessee, I would think long & hard about putting such a guy in charge of one of the most important visible parts of my public institution.

It only ends once. Anything that happens before that, is just progress.

The state of Tennessee football in my mind can only be saved by two people: Chip Kelly (I know you are probably shocked by this one but I'll explain later) and Bobby Petrino who they obviously will not go after. Petrino has proven he can win in the SEC, and Tennessee needs somebody who can for sure win in the conference, not a gamble like Dooley. Chip Kelly is also a high profile name who can bring recruits to Tennessee and quickly with that. If Tennessee were to offer him 4-4.5 million a year and throws in the Jimmy Haslam card like they reportedly did to Gruden, they may be able to snag him with rumors that he is hopping to the NFL. If Tennessee doesn't get either of those two guys, and I doubt they will, I believe that they will endure more instability at the coaching position for some years to come.

And that's exactly why an NFL position is so appealing to him. I've got to admit I hate the SEC, but it would be a blast watching the spread against the physical, fast, and overall stellar defenses in the SEC.

Very true. Hopefully A&M can keep up the "momentum" and continue to put out a good product in SEC land (I'm not aware of Kevin Sumlin's history, has he been a spread guy before or is he adapting to his QB,Johnny Manziel?). But another team down there doing what Oregon and Arizona are doing would be fun to see. One does have admit, Urban Meyer won down there using his "spread-type" game and Florida in the 90's was a spread-type passing team.

Historically though, most teams in the SEC have been what they are now and to mix it up a bit would be nice, I agree.

He's a spread to pass/air raid guy, with roots in both the Joe Tiller and Mike Leach coaching trees (he was an offensive assistant when Leach was Oklahoma's OC), so he's definitely a spread guy, but not necessarily the zone-read heavy running spread that Kelly comes out of.

TN is a toxic job right now. Dooley brought them down farther than they were before, who knows what kind of players are left, and there's clearly a lot of pressure to succeed early. Hopefully they hire someone who doesn't wear ridiculous orange pants.

I was with you all the way until "ridiculous orange pants." Come on man. Those pants rock.

I think UT is ready to stick with the next coach for a while and there is a lot of pressure on the new AD to make a good hire (he didn't hire Dooley). I wouldn't be surprised to see the next coach get 5 years to turn the program around.

University of Tom Brady, B.A. '10; University of Peyton Manning, J.D. '13.

Living in the Knoxville area and hearing about Tennessee football just about every second of the day, I can tell you that their recruiting class is less than stellar for an SEC school (mediocre for a BCS school) and rumors are that Bray is going to depart for the NFL. They have a pathetic defense with no depth and lack a kicker. With seniors at the skill positions and no depth there either, Tennessee is in a state of disaster if this hire isn't stellar.

Worley and Peterman are still there, so is almost all of the O-line, and there is plenty of depth at receiver. The issue isn't with the offense as much as it is with the defense. Sunseri wants to throw out his 3-4 defense even though the strength of UT's defense is its defensive line. Maggitt and Johnson are awesome linebackers, but they have to do too much in Sunseri's system.

As for the next class, you're right--it's garbage. However, Tennessee is far from being "in a state of disaster."

University of Tom Brady, B.A. '10; University of Peyton Manning, J.D. '13.

Yeah, I live in the area as well, and people are down on the team, but UT is still a good job considering the whole region worships the football team. They have the resources to be good. All they need is the right coach. All of the criticisms you said of UT could (and were) said of UM after 2010, but the right coaching staff fixed a lot of it.

but other than the money motivation, I don't really know where Tennessee can find a coach with ties to the school (not Dave Clawson or Cutcliffe) that will have the passion to turn them around like Hoke did with us. And it really is amazing to compare that it took Tennessee about 6-7 years (dating back to 2005) to get to the point where we were in 2010 where, on the other hand, it only took three seasons.

And I recognized the similarities instantly when I typed it, but I think they are only different in the fact that it is such a difficult job to take on in the SEC and look for immediate results. I don't really see a coach out there that can do the sort of job that Brady did with Michigan, and in this case, the SEC. I never had a doubt with Brady because he had prior success with turning around programs rather quickly, for example, Ball State and SDSU.

Job security could add more money to that. 2.3 over 6 years is longer than 3.5 for 3 years. At Louisville he can get by as long as he goes to bowl games and not worry about being fired. Cannot say the same about the Tennessee job. Reminds me a lot of Shaka Smart, although he'll have to turn down a couple more higher programs to reach that level.